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U.S. Government Wants June Passenger Records
danwiz was one of several readers to point out the Associated Press story (carried here by the Boston Globe) which says that that the Transportation Security Administration plans to issue an emergency order requiring that U.S. airlines turn over passenger data for all June 2004 flights to the government within 40 days. "Such data may include credit card numbers, address, telephone number and meal request. Perhaps unrelated to terrorism, the data will be also tested to see if fraud or identity theft can be detected."
Hopefully, in the 30 day comment period, the airlines make some worthwhile objections...
Who am I kidding?
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
The good news is it shoots a hole in all the conspiracy theorists idea that the government has this information readily availalbe all the time. :)
Bush is losing his post-convention bounce. Kerry gave a great speech to open the last phase of the election.
Gee, we need a distraction! Let's remind the voters that they need to be scared. A terrorist might kill you and you child at any minute! Only Bush can save you!
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
This gives them a "credible source" to be able to attribute your information to.
f -your-constitutional-rights" on your Patriotic ass - you criminal, non-Christian punk.
Seriously, they couldn't possibly arrest you as an "enemy of the state" just because you violated the Patriot Act/DMCA and were considered pseudo-potentially-suspicious by NSA, CIA, or FBI.
However, now that the "MCP^H^H^H Department of Homeland Security" is in place in conjunction with the "Transportation Saftey Administration", you can rest assured that travel information for June (and the months following) will ONLY be used for your protection.
Now move along Citizen...
... or our Gubment will open a can of "whatever-we-want-in-a-military-tribunal-exempt-o
(I have karma to burn, so if you think I'm trolling - bring it on... If there's ever been anything worth burning karma for in my lifetime, it's the future of the USA and the world in general. Even if you don't agree with my points, you owe it to yourself as a fellow intellectual to make the right decision in November [if you are or know a US Citizen] - VOTE!
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
When you're bitching about WHOIS in a thread about the US gov't requisitioning airline data, it is off topic.
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
Because once you have lost data privacy, you're never, ever going to get it back.
One more database falls to the federal government.
I can't wait until the first person prosecuted or watch-listed because of something he said over an instant-messaging program ("God, Bush is an idiot -- I wish someone would shoot him".) Still no GPG encryption on IM clients (well, other than gabber).
Used to be that you could have an anonymous website, but that's about to go away.
You can't drive without a license (where you get thumbprinted).
You can't fly without all sorts of data about you being logged.
The US government is pushing hard for biometrics in all areas. Biometrics are *terrible* as a traditional authentication system mechanism, since once someone's stolen the secret data (say, hacked one iris reader), you can never invalidate it. However, they're wonderful for monitoring purposes, since people have their "papers" with them wherever they go. They can also be used to tie together databases nicely.
Authoritarianism allowed by the application of computers will be one of the greatest new world problems that we'll have to face. Never before have societies had the ability to crack down, monitor, and ensure precisely compliant behavior on such a large chunk of their population. Can humans function well in such an environment? Is such an environment a good idea?
May we never see th
What is so bad about the idea of establishing criteria for high risk passengers? Statistically speaking, I believe that the prominent threat to the airlines (notice I don't say "only") comes from Arab Muslim single males between the ages of 18 and 45. This criteria certainly fit all of the 9/11 terrorist hijackers. What is interesting is that although the article mentions that the post data would be turned over, it doesn't specifically state exactly how the government will use the data in terms of homeland security.
At any rate, though, I don't think that maintaining flexible profiles for high risk passengers is such a bad idea. Some passengers may be inconvenienced; however, if it will save lives, then I am quite willing for some people to end up having their feelings hurt.
Get some.
OK, it's quite simple.
1. You're using Firefox
2. You had two tabs open
3. With two YRO stories
4. You replied to the wrong one.
5. You want this one.
6. Someone will shortly claim your soon-to-be reposted comment is a dupe and point to the one in this story as proof.
7. You will lose more karma.
Therefore:
*Don't post while drunk.*
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
zChat is a PGP encrypted chat client and is, I believe, strictly peer-to-peer. Alternatives are good, right? Note that the link page doesn't display properly in Opera for some reason, but works fine in Firefox. I plan to install a Jabber server myself, but zChat is dependable. I've used it since I've got a license to zMud.
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
if they're really interested in testing their software, why not pick a month where there some known terrorists flying?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
And it's halfway there, but by not using GPG, it means that it can't piggyback off of all the other work that I do to maintain a trust database (I'm not going to maintain a different list of identities of people that I know of for every single program I use -- that's just unreasonable.) Also, it isn't a standard -- nothing interoperates with it. Sure, licq has a method of encrypting messages (actually, might just be SSL instead of full end-to-end encryption -- I'd have to look), gaim has two, jabber clients have at least one). None of them interoperate, so nobody uses them.
If a client did something as simple as taking a random number at the start of each session and sending it to the remote client, and then every message from the remote client had, as a header, a nonce consisting of tuple of a local random number (an increasing sequence number) and the sent-at-session-initiation random number, and then each message was GPG encrypted and signed, you have a standard mechanism that can be used by any client just by feeding the data into GPG -- a *standard* mechanism that every client can support. (The random numbers are necessary to avoid replay attacks -- else I could log someone saying "Sure, I give you authorization to do that" and then use that statement in another conversation. That's not a big deal from an encryption standpoint, but from a signing standpoint, especially as IM is being used in business now, it's serious.)
May we never see th
Well if no have no data protection laws, people (and the govmt) can do what they want...
Maybe about time someone with a clue started banging on about all this at Capitol Hill.
Mind you with November creeping up I doubt they'd get much airspace..
"Used to be that you could have an anonymous website"
Please elaborate.
How exactly did it use to be?
What changed, and when?
Thanks.
I'm not so worried about them having my travel details for the month of June, I think I flew to Tulsa for a meeting. I would also happily email them a summary of all my trips to the supermarket, gym, driving to & from work.
Better yet, what if everybody emailed them everything? For every trip? Would a DDoS work?
Sometimes it's better to take the opposite approach. If someone closes a road with a gate and a padlock - don't knock it down, put an extra lock on it. Or two.
Alan.
"We are at war. There are people who would like to do us serious harm, and we must keep ourselves alert and not kid ourselves into thinking that religious faith or other statistical data is but a mere coincidence."
I've stopped using all public transport which requires ID, if it also means the potential for data retention or a database search (versus mere inspection of your ID).
All these comments about security versus privacy miss an important point:
strictly speaking, security does NOT require that ANY privacy be sacrificed.
There are alternatives.
Even tin-foil-hat (Ultimate Paranoid) I would be willing to submit to personal searches before boarding -- as exhaustive as needed to ensure that I present no risk -- IF it meant that I didn't have to PERMANENTLY risk any privacy/anonymity by making any info about myself available for recording, etc.
I'd gladly trade momentary personal "dignity", and additional costs and delays, to retain my long-term privacy.
All these "terrorism"-related measures aren't just about security. They're also about the inexorable tendency of large regulatory institutions to become impersonal and concomitantly unconcerned about individual rights, an observation which is part of the bedrock rationale for "anarchists".
Particularly in the case of law-enforcement, people in those institutions drool at the prospect of having an excuse to collect exhaustive data about the entire populace, for reasons and purposes far beyond the prevention of terrorism.
Arguably the government can use the data to do a better job of investigating and preventing terrorism.
And so it should.
But, the current policies are being driven forward with that single-minded objective with no consideration whatsoever given to the preservation of the rights and liberties that have made America a desirable place to be a citizen.
Sure we can defeat terrorism - but who wants to live in a police state?
The government should institute the recommendation of the 9/11 commission to create a truly independent advisory panel to oversee these unprecedented encroachments into citizens rights to insure there are no abuses and that the data is used for legitimate law enforcement purposes only.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
And in a few years, you'll be denied boarding and arrested after a swipe of your national ID reveals that you have some unpaid parking tickets in Peoria or you're a little behind on your child support payments.
Who else remembers being told about the horrors of Soviet Russia in elementary school, one of which being the internal passport and lack of freedom to travel? Guess what, kids--it's here.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Does anyone here wonder if the likes of Sabre or Casto or others are fronts for CIA domestic ops? It is seeming to be more plausible that the ticket info claims are just a smokescreen. The various Intel agencies probably have all teamed up to fund and operate their joint ticket issuing and tracking operations.
That means that despite laws forbidding or not existing to allow them search and seizure powers for LAW ENFORCEMENT purposes, they could collect and analyze information on a business level.
After all, is it (yet) illegal for a person to shoot pics of police and civilian vehicles, timestamp the date and location of observation, and correlate them with any other activities? Just capturing vehicle plate and VIN information, with driver physical details, along with publicly observable whereabouts information is probably all a tracker would need. There wouldn't even be a need to crack into a database of any kind if only in-the-open information is collated.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"America learns from history."
Well, excuse the living hell out of ME.
If we learned, then why did we NOT follow the Israeli model, where agents capable of putting a bullet between your eyes in 3.4 seconds, and place agents on planes. Fly them ON DUTY. Fly cops coast to coast. The government can afford it by using funny money to get the tickets, let the airlines post the cash in the bank, and then the DOTreas at the end of the day retreives destroys or recirculates the genuine but tightly-controlled bills.
We COULD get the HELL OUT of foreign markets where living ruling elders despise or are are nonplussed by us. We COULD let the living KIDS decide 10 or 15 years from now where they want to be, rather that VOA telling them, trying to sidestep legit or illegit rulers, thereby PISSING them off and inducing them to conspire. While not a leader or elected official, Bin Laden, as twisted as he is, DOES show that some people will do anything to punish their own corrupt governments (adopted or not) for collaborating with America, from their perspective.
If "America learns", then why have we got bushes and rovers running the show? If America learns, why do we have city offices like San Jose costing HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS for taxpayers because cronism and back-scratching determines which vendors' equipment go into an office?
If Americans learn, then when will be the THIRD reported rape/molestation of Okinawa girls by uniformed US personnel? If America learns, why is it that we are so hated to the point that the sitting SElected president steadfastly refused to permit American uniformed personell stand trial in nations where captured and jailed for breaking local laws, and where we can execute criminals here when back home they may not have execution as an option, nor any reciprocal extradition treaties with the US?
We learn MY ASS! Except for tax bodies that figure out every goddamn taxable-transaction scenario, except for arms-deals-continuation, and the like, we learn SLOWLY.
There is a lot to love about America, but we STILL have lot of curdly, funky, inedible matter in the folds of our national skin. Like many molds, it WON'T go away until collectively we come clean, leave "markets" off-limits, stop barging our way into tribes' and villages' mores, and we stop financing corrupt or ineptly run airlines while enriching the CEOs who stay in power and get paid on CIVILIAN TAXES.
We learn? We DO. We do things with strings attached, almost always. We learn how to throw laws and contracts like Alien throws eggs in a hot, steamy cauldron of hell.
We have a LOT to learn.
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
There is nothing to worry about. The people who want this information will be overloaded by the huge amount of data. They will try to invent new database techniques and filtering algorithms to produce information from this data, but in the end the data will become so much that no algorithm will be able to produce useful processable information from them.
Hmmm... interesting. How dare I say that America learns?
America is not perfect. America has made mistakes. America does make mistakes. America will make some mistakes. That is one of the downfalls of humanity - we make mistakes. What makes us different is from countries such as Russia is that we do learn from our own mistakes. America used the atom bombs in Japan to bring the war in the Pacific to a swift close. The American scientists at the time did not fully understand the full scope of the weapon that they had created. America never used them again. We have nuclear capability, but we keep the weapons for deterrent, defensive purposes only, and we will never launch a first strike with them.
America used chemical and biological warfare in Vietnam. There is enough lying and deceit about which to discuss about that war to fill several blogs. But, the U.S. has since stopped the use, manufacture, and storage of such weapons. And we have lived up to what we have said that we will do (never use chemical or biological warfare).
Americans tortured prisoners in Iraq. This was clearly wrong, and was an embarrassment to all of us. This is not how we Americans as a people do business. That being said, instead of sweeping it under the rug, American leaders dealt with it... live on International television where leaders had to answer the tough questions.
As for military personnel... One has to take the media for what it is when it reports on that. These reports provide statements like *a* Marine, *two* sailors, *some* soldiers, and so on. Often, it is the transgressions of the military that makes headlines. Never mind the fact the U.S. Military raises millions of dollars every year through the Combined Federal Campaign http://www.opm.gov/cfc/ [opm.gov] Our military personnel even donates money to organizations who have a history of objecting to the military (like Green Peace, for example). Never mind the fact that statistics amongst the military are FAR less than that of the general public. Never mind that there are military personnel who volunteer their time without any expectation of recognition through various community programs. I rarely read about these things in the media, but then again they aren't the kind of stories that would generate big bucks for the news, either. Basically, we have to keep things in perspective.
The American military personnel are a professional work force that is honorable, diligent, courageous, and committed to defending America and America's interests. They support America in spite of liberal whiners who think that the answer to world peace is simply for America to throw down its arms. This would be like a cop throwing down his weapon in the hopes that the criminal would do the same. The idea is ludicrous, like most other liberal ideas, that the United States should just throw away our weapons, come whimpering home, and then believe that the meanies would just leave us alone.
Although we make mistakes, my friend, we learn from them. In a way, one might be able to argue that others in the world learn from the United States. For example, in the 1940's the Japanese thought that America was a country of Playboys. They thought that a major strike would cause America to be passive and to beg for mercy. They learned that they had counted wrong.
Get some.
well their are a few problems with your reply first and formost !
./ tab open
/. not long ago and I'm not suer how to post a msg directly to any one so go ahead and Off Topic, or troll me O well. I can't let this go unanswered in public.
I Do Not Drink and I resent you saying I do.
number two I am using Mozilla 1.6 and only had 1
and third I would not have even read the article that this got posted to because I don't care about the issue.
*don't post with inflated Ego*
I cant believe you got modded up as funny
I just started posting to
I'd Tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past
I made a promise to myself to apologize to you before I posted again; I would like to do so now. What I said was unclear and offensive, stated in an inappropriate manner. The moderation on that comment came down to [0, Flamebait], but it is my opinion that it should have been lower. I apologize for my comments.
~UP
Eat the Path.
Greetings, UP.
No apology is necessary, UP. I enjoy an engaging conversation, and I value free speech.
As for being unclear and offensive... The purpose of the title to my original post was to grab readers' attentions and to spark debate. It succeeded in that in and of itself. However, in giving it such a title I failed to express effectively what I was trying to communicate - hence the trolling rating.
My apologies to you and to all who have taken offense.
Get some.